Terrorists And Pedophiles Get More Protection In UK Than Guy Who Hosted Links To TV Shows

from the terrrorists-don't-bother-the-MPAA dept

For a while now, we've been following the ridiculous story of Richard O'Dwyer, the student in the UK who the US is trying to extradite to face criminal charges, all because he created a website where people linked to streaming TV shows (some legal, some not). At no time did he host illegal content. He just built the site. While the public has spoken out against the extradition, the Home Office, led by Home Secretary Theresa May, has so far held fast to sending O'Dwyer across the Atlantic.

In 2011, at least one terrorist – and possibly up to four – was allowed to stay, as well as up to eight killers and rapists. Also among the total were 20 robbers and up to eight paedophiles, plus as many as four people convicted of firearms offences.

In 2010, the Home Office conceded in the cases of up to four murderers and up to four people convicted of manslaughter, as well as up to four rapists, up to eight paedophiles and 43 people convicted of violent crime or robbery.

That's from The Telegraph, which found out that and much more via a Freedom of Information Act request. The article has a lot more detail, but it seems pretty clear that May and the UK government have rejected extradition on all sorts of cases involving people accused of all sorts of horrible things. But when it comes to O'Dwyer? Well, you know, the MPAA is upset with him, so he's gotta go...

Apparently many of these decisions were made to avoid violating the Human Rights Act. For example, one guy, a Ukrainian accused of running "Britain's biggest sham marriage racket," has avoided extradition because he has two kids in the UK. What O'Dwyer should have been doing, instead of fighting extradition through legal means, was knocking someone up so he had a kid in the UK to convince Theresa May that he should stay.

Reader Comments

What O'Dwyer should have been doing, instead of fighting extradition through legal means, was knocking someone up so he had a kid in the UK to convince Theresa May that he should stay.

You have a valid point. Moreso because the age of consent is 16 or 17 there. Which means he legally could have been covering his ass whilst on his criminal rampage against artists, children and very small, fuzzy animals which are a threat to noone.

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Re: Think about it!

I'm not particularly sexist, well, maybe a little. It seems to me, from what I've read lately, that the most vehement maximalists in public office, and the persons most likely to slam a defendant, are female. I wonder why.

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Getting to the top usually requires alpha male asshattery. For a women it requires the same degree of alpha male asshattery plus a little more to make up for the fact that being a women makes her alpha maleness suspect to the other alpha male-esque arse hats.

It's just unlikely that females who are not alpha male-esque arse hats, or willing to act like one for a living, will make it to the top as easily and readily as those who are alpha male-esque, which usually means having a punative authoritarian outlook.

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like already stated, this is being done at the behest of the US entertainment industries, not because he has done any thing illegal. certainly, nothing he has done is illegal in the UK. i am just waiting to see exactly what excuses are used to condone the decisions to not extradite those mentioned. May and the UK government should be ashamed of themselves for what they are doing to this guy and all because of little plastic discs with information on them!!

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It might be the lack of international civil courts causing the governments to overleap their jurisdictions by such large margins?

There is something to be said about making international enforcement of civil matters possible in one way or another. If that is not possible, most of the IPR-ideology is threatened on its mere existance, since whoever goes against the IPR-ideology will create safe havens for some illegal copying
Other ways to combat illegal copying is through criminalizing it on a state level and get sufficient extradition maximalism deals, to block for access to certain sites from the ISPs or isolate the site by removing it from search-results (DMCA-takedowns) and secondary linking (This articles case seems to be a fake to force the site to close down).

The ISP-blockings and isolations are being pursued at the moment, with very limited effect. If the current IPR-regime is gonna stay a possibility in the future something has to happen! Since China and India are against it, we will not be able to see the international political solutions and even though ACTA is a way to try and puch them closer to western IPR-enforcement, ACTA is just waaay too specific in substatial demands. Western world will have to accept a far less maximalist position on IPR to get China and India on the boat, but as long as China and India are not on the boat, the industries will be adamently defending the current laws from getting weakened in any way. You see the bad cycle?

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Murder less than Copyright

Richard O'Dwyer I suspect needs a few more years of relationship development before he stands much hope of knocking up a girl. Too many years stuck on computer on a forever alone path.

Still wives and kids have never been a factor when it comes to the RIAA and MPAA. We may recall Capital Records versus Jammie Thomas-Rasset a single mom of 3 kids. Or how about the MPAA/DoJ/FBI wanting to charge Kim's wife even if she was never a director in Mega. Kim was also lucky the Judge allowed him home to be there for the birth of his twins when guess who never wanted him released.

So I don't think it would work well for copyright meaning that Richard would need to murder someone in the US first before he could try for that defence.

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Paedophilia became a criminal offence with the introduction of the Sexual Offender Act, way back when. Paedophilia was the hipster moral panic. Remember that it was only last century that weddings had to have an age of consent in most of the Western Anglophone world.

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Age of Consent... First introduced in England around 1275. Spread to most of Europe throughout the 16th century, and enacted in the US in 1890s. CURRENT AoC in the US wasn't settled around 16-18 until around 1920.

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And while I prefer women over their 25ies (less childish) I must argue that ususaly by the age of 14 (sometimes earlier) they are already developed and ready for action. 18 is an artificial and stupid limit. 14 would be the proper limit.

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You say that like you're commenting on livestock...

May I humbly suggest that the age of consent is higher than 14 for the simple reasons of mental maturity, education and responsibility too?

I know, I know, kids are doing it at that age (though a lot less than society thinks) but there are a lot of teenagers at that age who are still quite vulnerable. They should also be given a shot at making something of their life before they end up 25 years old with 5 kids, on the 3rd husband and a lifetime of regrets.

A lot of teenagers, given the choice, do not make smart decision which is why there are laws in place to specifically keep them on the right track.

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A paedophile has committed paedophilia. Since the latter is illegal, a felony in fact, the former is thus a criminal. Someone who suffers from 'latent paedphilic urges' isn't necessarily a criminal until they act on those urges.

Very frustrating

As someone trying to campaign on extradition and human rights issues, this sort of story is very, very frustrating, because it completely misses the point, and it is rather disappointing that Mike has fallen for it. Actually, it misses several points:

1 - This article is about deportation, which is completely different, both practically and legally, from extradition. Deportation is when a country kicks someone out because they don't want them, extradition is when a country gives someone to another country because the second country does want them.

2 - Deportation is generally far less serious, so human rights factors are likely to be more significant. In an extradition case, the person is going somewhere to face trial for a sufficiently-serious crime. In deportation cases the person has usually done their time in prison, and in some cases, any conviction may well be spent. They are supposedly "safe".

3 - Terrorists and paedophiles (and for the record, paedophilia isn't actually illegal in the UK) have precisely the same protections as anyone else. It is a common criticism of European Human Rights law that is provides greater protection to "evil criminals" than ordinary citizens, but legally this is complete nonsense. What happens is that it is the "evil criminals" who are far more likely to suffer abuses or interferences of these rights, as these are the people states tend to want to do nasty things to. The only way we can guarantee that Human Rights actually apply to all of us is to ensure that they apply to everyone, including the worst elements of society.

4 - Even if she wanted to, Theresa May doesn't have the legal power to block O'Dwyer's extradition! Extradition (in the UK) is a legal process governed by a law. She can't simply say "We're not going to extradite him because we don't feel like it", she has a list of (5) very specific grounds on which she can block extradition. No more, no less. Human Rights issues are not one of them (although as a public authority she must act compatibly with the ECHR when making decisions). And surely this must be right? We don't want ministers having huge discretion over a legal process, particularly given their political, rather than judicial background.

5 - O'Dwyer's situation is pretty terrible and seemingly unjust... but it is a legal situation and has a legal solution; hence he is going before the High Court next week (iirc) to argue, on legal grounds, that he shouldn't be extradited (on the basis of dual criminality and possibly human rights grounds). Hopefully he will win his appeal.

6 - Perhaps most importantly, this article isn't about attacking extradition or deportation, this article is about attacking Human Rights (something the UK press hate, as they keep losing cases under the HRA). It is yet another in a long line of cheap shots taken by the UK newspapers against the fundamental freedoms that they seem to hate so much. Any individual who would like to maintain these rights should have nothing but contempt for this sort of biased, manipulative and self-serving journalism.

Re: Very frustrating

I keep trying to click insightful though sadly it only allows one click per user/session.

So here are +1000 insightful's and a huge "at last someone explains what the law really states without hyperbole and FUD from media and vested interests" award.

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The only good thing I can see coming out of the media's portrayal of Mr O'Dwyer's case is that at least it has in some respect drawn public attention (however brief that wil realistically be) to the inequity of the USA's extradition treaties with the UK (and every other country).

Re: Re: Very frustrating

Thank you.

Also, the US/UK extradition treaty isn't actually that imbalanced. The US doesn't have any special relationship, legally, as far as extradition goes; if you're interested, the last time I checked the list of countries in exactly the same position as the US was something like this. They're mostly countries that aren't in the EU, but are either in within the scope of the ECHR or that we trust enough to have fairly decent criminal justice systems and respect for the rule of law.

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Thanks for that list, though I and now intrigued as to why not all commonwealth countries are included on that list and surprised at others that are (Croatia/Serbia).

My concern with the USA extradition treatise isn't to do with the actual evidence requirements or the structure of procedural fairness within the jurisdictions (when it comes down to it the ones on that list are 99.99% of the time extremely reasonable and correct), it is more to the lack of reciprocity with the USA for the extradition of citizens from the USA. That's my biggest gripe.

The main imbalance seems to have been from 2004-2007, when the UK had put in place its law, but the US hadn't ratified the new treaty; as such extradition from the US required "probable cause evidence", whereas extradition from the UK only required "information satisfying the reasonable suspicion test". However, now the US has ratified the treaty, their side goes down to "information satisfying the probable cause test".

The 2011 independent review of UK extradition law (which can be found here) examined the US/UK extradition situation in detail (in part 7) and concluded that there was "no significant difference between the [tests]" and that the difference is "semantic rather than substantive" (see 7.42-7.44). The review also concluded that many of the criticisms raised of the 2003 treaty were actually about the previous treaties, or over the US criminal justice system in general.

ANNEXES II and III of Council Regulation (EC) No. 1236/2005
as amended by Regulation (EU) No 1352/2011

Lists referred to in Articles 3, 4 and 5.

LIST OF CAPITAL PUNISHMENT AND TORTURE GOODS

This list implements controls on capital punishment and torture goods as specified by
Council Regulation (EC) 1236/2005, pursuant to Article 6 of the Treaty on European
Union (respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms) and other European
Charters, Declarations and Resolutions to such regard.

ANNEX III

List of goods referred to in Article 5

1. Goods designed for restraining human beings, as follows:

1.1. Restraint chairs and shackle boards;
Note: This item does not control restraint chairs designed for disabled persons.

Note: This item does not control ‘ordinary handcuffs’. Ordinary handcuffs are handcuffs which have an overall dimension including chain, measured from the outer edge of one cuff to the outer edge of the other cuff, between 150 and 280 mm when locked and have not been modified to cause physical pain or suffering.

Will be a breech of his Right under Article 6 of the Treaty on European
Union (respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms) as so there for the Home Secretary should not be allowing the extradition.

You know what I find interesting. Whenever a 'white' person does something, like the Colorado shooting, Columbine, the overwhelming majority of serial killers, Unabomber, Green River Killer, the Twinkie Defense, Timothy McVeigh, the media almost portrays them as a historical icon to be remembered for a long time. Psychologists and psychoanalysts will be contemplating their behavior for a long time.

If it's an Arab or an African American or some other race that did it, they would be referred to as terrorists, depraved, etc... terrorist organizations. This is the rule, not the exception, and this is a coordinated effort by some organization to attack Americans.

Why isn't the KKK considered a terrorist organization? Because they're white? What's the difference between them and al-Qaeda?

I'm not saying anything against white people in general, just that the media portrays them differently when they do something. When a white person does it they're mentally insane, extremists, outliers. This is the exception, not the rule, and it was a spur of the moment isolated event. When someone else does it it's a preplanned concerted effort by some (terrorist) organization with an ongoing agenda.

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and I understand that this is an overly exaggerated simplification, but the point is that we should be careful how we throw the word "terrorist". We need to make sure buzzwords like this aren't used based on the race engaging in an act, and that they're not defined around the action that a certain group does (and away from another violent action or type of violent behavior that another group does or engages in).

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Your entire article not only seems to assume that everyone who is accused of something is automatically guilty of it, it also completely misses the point of the protection that you are bitching about. Let's rewrite your headline so it's accurate:

People Whose Human Rights Would be Violated By the United States, Either Before or After Conviction Get (and Need) More Protection In UK Than Guy Whose Human Rights Would Not be Violated By the United States

Pedophiles in England?

Seems that Pedophiles, when they grow tired of the children they abuse then choose to place the victim (once the victim is too old for the pedophile) into the sex industry. This heaps more pain on an already abused and not healed victim of pedophiles.
And it seems that the pedophiles populate England at the highest levels of society.
How come England goes all out to prosecute child care workers (and they should be prosecuted) who were Pedophiles.
YET England hushes up people at the highest levels in the Judiciary and the government who ARE Pedophiles and yet who never face trial?
The system is corrupt.
And the victims are the poor children who are raped and abused by these pedophiles.
Legalising prostitution only entrenches the depraved pedophiles who discard their cast-offs to send these abused victims into prostitution.